My only thought here is that if this opinion is correct, jurisdiction in family law court must be quite a bit different than in regular civil court.
Michelle and Peter Last get married in 2002 and file for divorce in 2021. Before getting married, they signed a prenup, in which Peter agreed to give Michelle various monies and in return Michelle agreed to waive spousal support ("alimony") in the event they got divorced. Assuming the parties dotted the i's and crossed the t's, that prenup would be valid and enforceable.
During the divorce proceedings, Michelle asked for temporary spousal support. To be clear: she was the one filing the motion. Peter, in opposition, replied that no spousal support was due since the parties had signed a prenup that so stipulated. Michelle, in reply, said that the prenup was invalid because Peter was rich and she was relatively poor.
To decide whether the prenup is valid, the trial court has to make five particular statutory findings. But at the hearing, the trial court never decided whether the prenup was valid at all. Instead, it ordered $8,511 in temporary spousal support to Michelle, and said that it'd work out later whether the prenup was valid -- and, if it turned out that it was, that Michelle would likely have to pay back the money.
At which Peter files an appeal.
In a fairly erudite opinion, Justice Sanchez affirms. (Technically, to avoid difficult appellate jurisdictional issues, the Court of Appeal treats the appeal as a petition for writ of mandate, which it then denies, but the effect is the same.) Justice Sanchez says that prenups are presumed invalid under the statute and are only valid if five particular findings are made by the trial court, and since the trial court here didn't make any of those findings, it's presumed invalid, so the award of temporary support is fine. And that, if it turns out the prenup is valid, yes, Peter can get back the money at the end.
Logical enough, as far as it goes.
But here's the part that confuses (and somewhat worries) me. Justice Sanchez says:
"When the trial court heard Debra’s RFO it did not have jurisdiction to conduct a facial review of the Premarital Agreement and make findings under section 1615(c). The court had jurisdiction only to decide the matters set for hearing that day, which were Debra’s RFO, which sought temporary spousal support and need-based attorney fees, and Peter’s responsive declaration, which sought bifurcation of trial on the validity of the Premarital Agreement and a continuance of the hearing on spousal support."
Really?
It's true that Peter never filed his own motion that said "Decide if the prenup is valid and make the required findings." But in response to Michelle's motion, Peter very clearly said "No, don't grant spousal support, because we have a prenup that waives support." Accordingly, the only issue at the hearing was whether the prenup was valid: Michelle said it wasn't, and Peter said it was. And Peter went ahead and submitted the prenup to the Court, which seems fairly clearly (the Court admits) to contain all of the five things that the statute says it has to contain in order to be valid.
Doesn't that give the court jurisdiction to decide if the prenup is valid, even though there's no separate motion?
To a regular old civil litigator like me, that's your defense to the motion, and the court has jurisdiction to decide whether that defense is valid. Even if you don't make your own motion. For example, if plaintiff files a motion for a preliminary injunction, and I respond: "No, don't grant the motion, the plaintiff has already settled this dispute; here's the settlement agreement he signed," surely the court won't say "Oh, sorry, you didn't file your own motion to declare the settlement agreement valid; injunction granted." How is it any different here?
I'd think that the introduction of a defense (as here) necessarily grants the court jurisdiction to resolve the merits of that defense, including (as here) the validity or invalidity of that defense.
I was thinking that, maybe, family law court is perhaps different in that regard, so I looked up the only case that the Court of Appeal cites for its "no jurisdiction" holding. But that's not a divorce case at all, and is instead a normal writ proceeding that merely holds that when the petitioner asks only for X in its writ (there, to not produce some documents), the trial court doesn't have jurisdiction to grant petitioner an alternative, Y, that the writ petition never requested (there, to redact the documents instead). That's world's apart from the present case. Indeed, the Court of Appeal there repeatedly said that the court's jurisdiction is limited to any relief "encompassed within the issues raised by the petition." It seems here that the "issues" raised by Michelle's request (alongside Peter's defense) clearly include whether the prenup is valid; indeed, that's basically the only dispute between the parties at all on this score.
Would it have been clearer if Peter had expressly said in his opposition: "Please make the five findings necessary to declare the prenup valid?" Sure. But even without such an express statement, that clearly was his defense. So I'm not really sure that there was no "jurisdiction" to make these findings.
(I could potentially see an argument that Peter waived any request to have the prenup declared valid if the Court of Appeal thought that his opposition didn't set forth the required facts, or affirmatively said that he didn't want that relief now, but given that the prenup was his only defense, I'm not confident that that's what he really was doing.)
Anyway, those are my thoughts on jurisdiction for now.
Just one more thing on the merits. Clearly Peter is not far from poor, since the temporary support that was ordered was over $8000 a month. The opinion recites the details of the prenup: "(1) Debra waived the right to receive spousal support or alimony from Peter; (2) in consideration for the spousal support waiver, Peter agreed to pay Debra the following: (a) the sum of $16,000 within three days of their marriage as Debra’s separate property, (b) $3,500 upon completion of each of the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth years of marriage ($14,000 total), and (c) $4,500 upon completion of each of the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth anniversaries ($22,500 total); and (3) all equity in Peter’s separate property residence was transmuted by Peter into community property."
Doesn't that seem chintzy to you? Like, super chintzy? Admittedly, I don't know how much the house ("separate property") was worth, or how much equity was in it. But $3,500 or $4,500 a year for the whole marriage, even if (as here) they're married for 15+ years?!
It almost seems less insulting to give the (prospective) spouse nothing.
